inreaction

i’m off to clean and sleep so i shall post something pre-written.

II

The work was interesting enough – she handled the design while he and their myriad of colleagues handled the content and copy. Work was something Sam could always get lost in. Through the jungle of lines, colors, and graphic decisions that were her responsibility came a sense of possibility – each day the paper would be printed, and each day with her layout and art. She thought of herself as a perpetual artist, though she feared the merit of art so decidedly commercial.

With Sam’s new career intensity came prolonged hours at the office (and, subsequently, fewer hours of non-work, fewer droopy hours spend in front of the telley). She discovered a new community.

Apparently, the newsroom of the small, independent paper was full of worky types. Each night, when those with families or addictions awaiting them filed out (a group she once followed, though never for any clear reason), the office was transformed into a quiet community of those who so obviously lacked community.

They were divorcees, soon to be divorcees, foreigners, one widower, and a smattering of folks young enough to not be divorced but too old to be truly enjoying life. Sam, a newly self-discovered member of this last contingent, quickly learned the customs of this tribe. There were no lengthy discussions, and most greetings were met with an abashed “Hello” and a quick chuckle while diverting one’s eyes to the side or downward while actually passing this greeter. When going for coffee, one was only obliged to ask other tribesmen within touching distance. If you couldn’t tap their shoulder, you didn’t have to be their fix.

While it was true that he was also a part of this scene, he was never really part of anything. Some nights he would leave even earlier than the baby boomers, some nights he would stay later than she. Regardless of his departure, he always wore virtually the same outfit. Khaki pants, pleatless, perhaps of the kind that repels water into big globs that fall flatly onto the floor without staining the man’s thighs. The khakis ended in brown oxfords, matching sensibly with his brown leather belt with its discreet silver buckle. He varied his shirts, though they were always cut in the polo style. Sometimes they had two buttons, some days three. They seemed to Sam always blue, but she thought that impossible. Today his shirt was definitely blue, a navy two-button. Today he was staying late.

I

It wasn’t the first thing she thought of when she saw him, but it didn’t take her long to realize the potential. There were the obvious problems of course. He was Catholic, she was liberal. She cared for aesthetics, he cared about the English language. But they worked together, and that should count for something.

She was undoubtedly modern. He seemed the type to cozy up to a Phyllis Schlafly sooner than a Megan Fox. Not that she was particularly foxy – she found herself rather reasonable in her looks. Not a distracting temptress, not an excessively homely frump. She was decidedly average, and her wardrobe kept her within the bounds of professionalism without completely extinguishing her femininity.

To Sam, propriety was a thing of her parents’ years. She was far more apt at brutalizing her friends with honesty than most – where some saw an opportunity for pity, Sam saw an opportunity to tell the truth. She could, however, control this urge. Occasionally – last year’s company blood drive included – she cracked. She wondered if she would still be in the same cubicle if she had only kept mum when the exceedingly thin manager pulled up her sleeve. “Someone that thin has to be used to needles of some sort,” she had chuckled to him. If only it was just him who had heard.

Regardless, she lived a quiet life, a life that had recently become far too brooding for her. She abhorred melancholy, detesting Poe and much preferred pervasive gaiety. She had decided to live just a bit more.

This started, as most decisions made by modern women like herself, with a physical change. She dedicated herself to fitness, sweating through dips and bends and lifts. With this newfound physicality came new situations. She found herself surrounded by protein bar munching dunces and made-up yoga prima-donnas. It was not for her.

She, as most modern women do, gave up on the gym three weeks after her resolution. She had dropped a waist size and detested the thought of spending the next weekend in stores repeatedly lowering and raising pants and doling out her income to clothiers. Instead, she merely tightened her faux alligator skin belt and held her slacks around her newly toned waistline.

After the cardio binge had burned itself out, she was again finding herself fatigued and uninterested (which in turn made her fear that she herself was, indeed, uninteresting). It was then that she re-devoted herself, as so many modern women do, to her work.